Meet Panti Bliss: Beloved Irish Drag Queen And Activist

Already Ireland’s most famous drag queen, Pandora ‘Panti’ Bliss has also become one of the country’s foremost gay rights activists. The stage persona alter-ego of Rory O’Neill, Panti was instrumental in the ‘Yes’ campaign leading up to the 2015 marriage equality referendum, which saw Ireland become the first country to ever legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote.

The vibrant yearly beauty pageant ‘open to men, women and animals’ ran until 2012, raising hundreds of thousands of euro for Irish HIV and AIDS organisations. In 2007 Panti – by now a gay icon – got her own venue, opening her eponymous bar on Dublin’s Capel Street. Open seven nights a week, Pantibar hosts live entertainment that includes regular shows by the woman herself, and is at the centre of the city’s gay community.

Rory O’Neill became recognised as a national voice for gay rights in 2014, when he was interviewed on The Saturday Night Show on Irish television. His statement that some Irish journalists were homophobic led to complaints by the persons mentioned. In a move that was called ‘a real attack on the freedom of speech’ by Irish MEP Paul Murphy at the European Parliament, the national broadcaster apologised and paid out €85,000 in compensation to the journalists.

The following month, Panti gave a celebrated speech at The Abbey Theatre, in which she eloquently criticised the backlash against the comments made about homophobia in the RTÉ interview. Her ‘Noble Call’ went viral, being applauded by people like Ru Paul, Stephen Fry, Madonna and Graham Norton. At the time of writing this article the speech had over 810,000 views on YouTube.

Though Panti has openly admitted that the controversy was stressful personally, it can be argued that it did great things for gay rights. The publicity gave her a platform from which to campaign strongly for the vote for marriage equality in Ireland. The day the vote passed, the crowd assembled at Dublin Castle, cheering more loudly and wildly when Panti arrived than for any other campaigner.